When I was in my 20’s I went to interview for a job as a carpet cleaner. They gave me a spiel to learn (everyone needs the “deep fiber treatment”) and then some paperwork to sign. But, reading the fine print, I discovered that I was to use my own car, I was to pay for the gas, I was to pay to rent the equipment, I was to pay for the cleaning supplies, I was to do all the work, and at the end of the day I was going to get a ten percent commission.

That was the moment I understood capitalism. Intelligence is not what makes you rich; neither is hard work. What makes you rich is skimming a large percentage of the value of the labor of a large group of people. That’s how you end up with billions of dollars. Not by being smart (although I’m sure it doesn’t hurt) and certainly not by being scrupulous. By having leverage. By owning the means of production.

Now as developers or techies we own a little bit of the means of production in the form of skills we have in our heads. But believe me when I say that they’re coming for that too in the form of intellectual property, software patents, and noncompetes. All of those things depress wages because they take the means of production out of our control. It’s really important to be able to see this. Money is a form of power and power is about leverage. Not intelligence or hard work.